Death and the Maiden

Roman Polanski's recent absentee triumph at the Academy Awards for The Pianist may lead viewers to search out films made earlier during his long and continuing exile from the United States; this 1994 adaptation of Ariel Dorfman's three-character play, which enjoyed a respectable Broadway run in 1992, is one of the more notable. Sigourney Weaver and Stuart Wilson play a couple living at an isolated coastal retreat in an unidentified South American country. When a doctor (Ben Kingsley) visits, the wife recognizes him as one of the men who had tortured her under a recently deposed dictatorship, and takes the opportunity to exact revenge. (The title is taken from the Schubert string quartet that the physician listened to while engaged in his grisly work.) As he demonstrated as far back as Knife in the Water and Repulsion, Polanski is skilled at enlivening potentially claustrophobic material, cannily using fluid camera movement to give what's essentially a one-set piece considerable visual energy. Though the performers occasionally strain for effect, especially in the didactic middle section, the acting is generally fine (it's strange, however, that no accents are even attempted). Although extra-less, the DVD boasts a mint-fresh transfer. Recommended. [Note: Polanski's Bitter Moon is also newly available from New Line at the same price.] (F. Swietek)